This invention relates to equipment for electrostatographically producing or reproducing copies of an original image on a suitable substrate. More particularly, the invention relates to such equipment including a multiple function fusing and image transfer roller.
Electrostatographic copies, as is well known, can be conventionally made by forming a toner image on an image bearing member, transferring such toner image to a suitable substrate, and then fusing the transferred toner image to the substrate. Depending on the type of substrate being used, for example, paper, plastic film or metallic plates, it may be desirable to contact fuse the toner image, by contacting and pressing such image onto the substrate, or to non-contact fuse the toner image to such substrate, by merely heating but not contacting the image.
Ordinarily, electrostatographic equipment as disclosed for example in related U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/453 740, filed on even date herewith on Dec. 20, 1989 in the names of the same inventors Sylvain L. Ndebi and Robert D. Bobo, and entitled "ELECTROSTATOGRAPHIC EQUIPMENT WITH MULTIPLEX FUSER", include separate devices (a) for effecting toner image transfer from the image bearing member to a substrate, and (b) for fusing such image onto the substrate. Conventional equipment, unlike this related patent application, even have separate devices (i) for non-contact fusing of such image, and (ii) for contact fusing of the image. To include all three separate types of devices in one piece of equipment ordinarily would require that the equipment include relatively more components and more parts, and hence that would make such an electrostatographic piece of equipment relatively more elaborate, and more costly.